


Throwing off Sparks

by ParadifeLoft



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 08:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14666913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParadifeLoft/pseuds/ParadifeLoft
Summary: The wound of Feanor's death is still raw, and Celegorm finds his brother increasingly difficult to live with.





	Throwing off Sparks

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from tumblr - written for a dark/angsty prompt list, for the entry, "It's all your fault".
> 
> Also, since I imply but don't state it outright in the fic itself - the setting is intended as pre-Rising of the Sun Mithrim.

When the candle tipped, Celebrimbor had been surprisingly quick enough on his feet to smother it before too much damage was done. Even so, when the wool blanket was pulled away slightly singed, several lists of Sindarin phonological rules had still become blotchy spots of charred paper instead.

Celegorm hadn’t been quick enough noticing the shifted candle to _keep_ from the accidental glancing blow that sent it rolling into one of the multiplying stacks of paper in the shelter – but he had been quick enough turning once it happened to catch the flash of heart-stopping terror on Curufin’s face across the room. He winced now, blanket in hand an amulet collecting his guilt. Curufin had eyes only for the notes it had unveiled, sunken eyes in his still-too-gaunt face that said all the words that had been so scarce in coming out of his mouth these past months.

He was across the room before Celegorm barely had a chance to register it, too, clasping all-too-fragile sheets in shaking hands that fluttered against his unbound hair.

“It’s alright, it’s not that bad; I’m sure we could recopy it and fill in the charred parts,” Celebrimbor punctured the silence in a rush; because bless his nephew and his babbling response to tension (not drawing it down to spend itself crashing on his head – which only worked when Celegorm himself _wasn’t_ a key fulcrum of that tension, damn it all that the _one_ time he did something clumsy – )

“This is _your fault_ ,” Curufin interrupted. His voice fell somewhere between a croak and a venomous hiss, and it burned in his eyes too, so much that Celegorm instinctively twitched his gaze away from the wildness of his brother’s stare. “How could you be so _careless_ – “

Not that the flinch lasted long. Celegorm set the blanket aside, to replace it with the pile of papers in his own custody – Curvo seemed like to tear them by accident as anything, with the way he clutched them so tight.

“I’ll not make a habit of it,” he said; and his attempted smile turned to a grimace at the tension in his own voice when he’d been going for something light. “Tyelpe has it true; I’ll even copy it myself for you. Look, they can’t be difficult data to get; even I can tell what they’re talking about.”

Curufin’s glare in response was murder and contempt. “ _They weren’t my notes_ ,” he replied. Each word harsh and punctuated. Each word dragging Celegorm away from his denial of what he’d known from the moment the candle fell.

“So?” Celegorm said, something snapping in him and leaving as words before he’d even realised it had broken. For a moment with a white-freezing clarity, he hated his little brother, this alternately listless or obsessive fragment he’d shrunken into. “Hoarding every – every fragment of a scribble he wrote in every spare surface of _our_ living area isn’t going to bring him back!”

In the face of his onslaught, Curufin had gone rigidly still. Celebrimbor barely entered his peripheral vision.

“If I’d do what’s best for you, you know, maybe I should pile up half of this all and set it ablaze on purpose!”

Pain struck sharp across Celegorm’s cheek with a _thunk_ , and he cried out in surprise in time with the echo of the overturned candlestick clattering down to the floor. Curufin’s hand formed a clenched fist, curled inward from where he’d grabbed the candlestick off the table a moment before; twin spots of color visited high in his cheeks for the first time in ages. Before the point of impact even spread out into a sore, throbbing pain, he’d fled across the room back to the nest of his bed. Celegorm pressed his hand to his face, at a loss for words as swiftly as the previous impulse had taken him over.

Disgusting. There wasn’t a part of this that wasn’t full of utter disgust; what a place they’d fallen to, dwindling one by one –

Air. By the stars, he needed some fresh air.

He stalked out for the door past a shock-horrified Celebrimbor, and wished that alone would be enough to purge this sickness.


End file.
